Why did it take so long to admit error?

AS Nicola Sturgeon’s deputy, and the minister in charge of education, John Swinney is a master practitioner of the U-turn.

And yesterday he executed an abrupt policy change that must count as one of the greatest climbdowns in the history of devolved government.

Mr Swinney had presided over the mass downgrading of tens of thousands of pupils’ exam results – with the poorest children among those hardest hit.

Responding to an extraordinary backlash yesterday, he apologised and promised to undo the damage.

That is welcome news for children who were robbed of the right to prove their ability in a formal exam setting. While fine detail of the remedy the Education Secretary proposes must be closely studied, in principle it is a compromise that most candidates and their families will accept.

But it took days for Mr Swinney to acknowledge that he had got it badly wrong, causing anxiety and entirely legitimate anger for young people who were let down.

Their fates were decided by a seemingly arbitrary algorithm that meant those from deprived homes saw their chances of university acceptance torpedoed.

They had endured extreme disruption to their education and then faced the nightmare prospect of seeing their futures torn apart by gross bureaucratic and political incompetence.

Mr Swinney belatedly took the blame for this appalling mess – but predictably stopped short of standing down.

As Professor Lindsay Paterson points out, we are also left with a set of results where teachers’ judgment has been accepted across the board with no external check.

Mr Swinney’s arrogant refusal to quit in the midst of this chaos is no surprise to anyone who has observed the modus operandi of his disaster-prone administration.

But important questions remain: why was the methodology used by the exams agency developed in such a secretive way?

Why did it take so long for Mr Swinney and indeed Nicola Sturgeon to admit the scale of their error?

A review of this abject shambles is promised but it seems clear ministers are desperate to draw a line under the scandal. Mr Swinney may have done enough yesterday to save his skin – but restoring parental faith in his judgment is now an impossible task.

During the pandemic, a series of screeching U-turns left his credibility in tatters.

But even before coronavirus struck, he was in a state of denial about endemic failure – and his inability to tackle it.

For as long as he stays in post, the First Minister’s pledge to prioritise reform of state education can’t be taken seriously – and nor can Mr Swinney.